Various apparatus have been developed over the years for spooling strips of web material such as photographic film. In one such apparatus, spools of the type having a core with a longitudinally extending slot for receiving the lead end of such a strip of film were fed side by side down a track to a first position of a four position rotor. The spools were taken one by one from the track and secured on the rotor by a first pair of quills mounted on the rotor, which quills engaged the opposite ends of the spools. The rotor then indexed to a second position where the first pair of quills were engaged by a first mechanism on the adjacent support frame and rotated to orient the slot in the core in a first position. At the same time, a second spool was taken from the track by a second pair of quills. The rotor then indexed again to a third position where the lead end of such a strip of film was inserted into the slot in the core and the first pair of quills were engaged by a second mechanism on the adjacent support frame and rotated to wind the strip onto the core. At the same time, a third spool was taken from the track by a third pair of quills and the second spool was rotated by the first mechanism to orient its slot in the first position. The rotor then indexed again to a fourth position where the first pair of quills were engaged by a third mechanism on the adjacent support frame and rotated while an outside label was applied to the spool. At the same time, a fourth spool was taken from the track by a fourth pair of quills, the second spool was rotated by the second mechanism to wind on another strip and the third spool was rotated by the first mechanism to orient its slot.
While the spooling apparatus of the type described performed rather well, it was complicated to set up and maintain. Adjusting the apparatus to correct for defects in the wound spools was difficult since four sets of identical winding quills were used, each of which would have to be checked to determine if it was causing the noted defects. In order to achieve a high machine cycle rate, relatively high accelerations and decelerations were required of the winding quills and the strips of film being spooled, which could cause tension or pressure marks in the film, thus leading to higher rates of rejection. Because the rotor had to be indexed from station to station before winding of a strip of film could occur, the overall portion of the machine cycle available for such winding was limited, making it difficult to correct for tension and pressure marks without reducing the production rate of the machine. The three mechanisms for rotating the quills were crowded around the four position rotor, making maintenance and set-up of the equipment quite difficult. The side-by-side spools in the feed track tended to lock together in the track, thus requiring operator intervention before further operation.